Split must create more Hyderabads

Hyderabad: The proposed bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh has exposed the failure of policy makers and town planners in building more cities in the state.

Concentrated development only in Hyderabad and its outskirts has  resulted in the state capital becoming a bone of contention for the people of both Telangana and Seemandhra regions.
Unlike housing, education, employment, investment, and medical facilities-cum-opportunities being available aplenty in Coimbatore and Madurai in addition to the capital city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, or Pune-Nagpur-Nasik-Aurangabad in addition to Mumbai in Maharashtra, and Jalandhar-Ludhiana-Amritsar in addition to  Chandigarh in Punjab, people do not have much choice in AP when it comes to migration and shifting to urban areas in the hope of a better living and livelihood.

Due to lack of infrastructure, educational institutions in professional courses like engineering and lack of employment opportunities in cities like Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Guntur, Ongole, Kurnool, Anantapur, Tirupati, Chittoor, Warangal, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and Mahbubnagar, people are continuing to flock to Hyderabad that has a world-class international airport, nearly 400 IT companies providing employment to 3.50 lakh people and expanding, thousands of industries, universities, defence establishments, research institutes, corporate and public sector hospitals.
Governments have neglected other cities in AP and failed to convince industrialists and IT sector to invest in these towns and cities. For example, one small airport is located 20 km from Vijayawada at Gannavaram compared to an international airport in Madurai.

If there are 10 small IT and ITeS companies in Vijayawada, there 60 IT firms in Madurai with some of them being international brands. There are only two engineering colleges in Vijayawada city and another four on its outskirts compared to 85 professional colleges in Madurai and over 100 in Coimbatore.

Though the position of Visakhapatnam is a little better than Vijayawada, as Visakhapatnam city (municipal corporation area) has 100 small, medium and big IT and ITeS companies, it is far behind in terms of having state and central universities, corporate hospitals, research institutions and industries that are there in Hyderabad, Chennai or Mumbai.

Urban development experts and town planners say it is time that more cities are build so that development and population are shared by multiple areas of both Telangana and  Seemandhra regions.

Director of Regional Centre for Urban and Environmental Studies, Osmania University, Prof G. Vasanth Kumar said that the Nizams had developed Hyderabad for a population of 8 lakh. Today, the population is close to 1 crore mark in Greater Hyderabad and the blame for this should go to the successive governments for not developing other smaller and medium towns.

“Every political party that came to power and every policy of the state government and also the Centre, were aimed at developing Hyderabad. So other towns were neglected. For example, Maharashtra state government ensured that cities like Pune, Nagpur and Nasik developed to a considerable extent even as Mumbai continued to emerge as a global city. Even the Tamil Nadu government took care of its other cities like Coimbatore and Madurai to develop industrially and educationally, in addition to Chennai,” Prof Kumar said.

Stating that cities were not built overnight, he said nevertheless the process of building cities has to begin and the bifurcation of the state has to be taken as an opportunity to develop more cities from here onwards.

“The Centre has already sanctioned Rs 150 lakh crore funds under the JNNURM for basic services, housing, infrastructure and urban development in towns. The state  has to request the Centre to relax the eligibility conditions and ensure that 130-odd municipalities in AP are made eligible for funding under JNNURM,” he said.

He suggested a two-pronged strategy to develop towns into cities. The strategy includes taking up satellite city development and building small and medium towns into cities. People from villages should come to district headquarters for work in the morning and go back to villages in the evening daily. “In Kerala, there is a developed town almost every two km and a village every 2 km,” he added.

Shabbir Shaikh, deputy director (urban development), Centre for Good Governance said cities like Hyderabad could not be developed in the next 25 years despite the talk of over Rs 5 lakh crore proposed to be pumped in a phased manner to develop a new capital city for the residuary state.

He said that if leaders and citizens think a state capital for Seemandhra can be developed in the next 10 years, they are daydreaming.

“If it could happen, then Hyderabad, which is over 400 years old, should have been at par with or even better than London and Paris. It will take a minimum of 50 years or more to build a city on the condition that the dream and vision is pursued untiringly with all government policies being pro-development,” he said.

According to Mr Shaikh, employment and educational opportunities should be created by setting up schools, colleges and more importantly, professional  colleges, to cater to the needs of industries, IT and ITeS.

“IT companies came to Hyderabad because they saw new latent pool of work force due to the presence of hundreds of engineering colleges. Opportunities have to be created in all fields. Pumping money to develop infrastructure alone will not build cities,” he said.

The policy makers along with urban development experts and town planners should prepare master plans to develop towns into cities and smaller cities into well-developed cities like Hyderabad, Mr Shaikh said.

P. Anwesh, assistant director (urban development centre) at Marri Channa Reddy Human Resource Development, said it is necessary to prepare a perspective development plan at the district level for all class I and class II towns to check which towns could be developed on the lines of Hyderabad.

“Cities like Hyderabad can be built and developed at a faster pace. Geographical location and area play a major role in the physical, social and environmental development of any area. The current class-I and class-II towns in AP do not have enough area, employment opportunities, IT companies, educational institutions and hospitals, and they are predominantly agriculture or industrial,” he said.

Former director of the Directorate of Town and Country Planning, B. Purushothama Reddy said urbanisation strategy plans should be prepared to provide urban facilities in rural areas so that migration to the capital city gradually slows down.

“Pro-development policies should be implemented and lots of incentives should be offered for development of towns into cities. Incentives can be in the form of giving lands at a cheaper rate, exemptions and benefits in taxation for industries and other firms to set up their units, providing infrastructure like roads, street lights, hospitals, schools, colleges, and creating employment opportunities. All these plans were prepared a long time back but not implemented,” he said.

National president of Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association, C. Shekhar Reddy said the urban sprawl of Greater Hyderabad was continuing to spread, thanks to the absence of a policy of decentralisation and lack of vision on part of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority .

There was a limit to the growth of Hyderabad and if allowed to grow in unregulated form, would pose severe strain on the facilities, lifestyle and other problems associated with large mega cities of the Third World like Mexico, Manila, Kolkata or Mumbai to name a few.